GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor supported the H-1B visa; his challenger did not

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader who lost a primary bid Tuesday for re-election, was a reliable "yes" vote for increasing the H-1B visa cap.

Cantor lost to challenger David Brat, a professor at Randolph-Macon College with a Ph.D. in economics -- and an opponent of the H-1B visa.

Brat's victory doesn't signal a reversal in bipartisan support in Congress for increasing the number of H-1B visas. Cantor saw the visa program as an area for bipartisan agreement, and he was on solid ground in saying so.

The Senate's bipartisan immigration bill, approved last year, would more than double the H-1B cap, increasing it from 85,000 to 180,000 annually. The fight over immigration has focused more on providing a path to citizenship for the approximate 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., not on raising the H-1B visa cap.

Few candidates in either party draw attention to the H-1B visa in their races. But Brat used the H-1B against Cantor.

In one statement, Brat wrote: "The Chamber wants low-skilled cheap labor; Mark Zuckerberg wants high-skilled cheap labor, but, at the end of the day, what they have in common is that they all want cheap labor and Eric Cantor wants to give it to them."

It's hard to know whether Brat's use of the H-1B visa, by itself, made much a difference in this contest or whether it will encourage others to attack the visa program.

Facebook's Zuckerberg is an active supporter for increasing the H-1B cap, and helped to create a lobbying group, FWD.us. In the wake of Cantor's defeat, the group put the best spin it could on Cantor loss by pointing, in a Twitter message, to a Public Policy poll (download PDF) that assessed voter support on various issues in Cantor's district. On the subject of immigration, when asked about providing eligibility for a path to citizenship, 40% of the respondents strongly support, and 32% somewhat supported.

Cantor, and other Republican leaders, reached out to the tech industry, and believed that a free market ethos and message was in synch with Silicon Valley's start-up culture. In a 2011 speech at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Cantor talked about creating a better environment for start-ups with tax and regulatory reform.

That same year, Cantor and his fellow so-called "young guns," U.S., Rep. Paul Ryan, the Budget Committee chair, and Kevin McCarthy, the House majority whip, appeared with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, at a town hall meeting that was streamed live.

Tech-related contributions to Cantor in the 2014 election cycle totaled $82,000, far below securities and investment industry contributors, who sent in $677,000 and real estate contributions that totaled $268,000.

Cantor's largest tech contributor was Oracle, which sent $25,000.

The fate of the H-1B visa cap has been tied to the broader issue of immigration reform, where there are much larger divisions. This has thwarted efforts by lawmakers to treat the H-1B visa as a separate issue and to raise the cap independent of comprehensive immigration reform.

Without a doubt, the tech industry lost one vote for an H-1B cap increase with Cantor's defeat, and Brat's win may kill any chance of immigration reform in this Congress. But Brat's attack on the H-1B program doesn't necessarily mean that other Republicans, who have backed a cap increase, will reconsider their support for the temporary work visa, and abandon the tech industry on what may be its top issue.

Advocacy groups say the companies should look first for U.S. tech workers for U.S. IT jobs

Three U.S. tech worker groups have launched a labor boycott of IBM, Infosys and Manpower, saying the companies have engaged in a pattern that discourages U.S. workers from applying for U.S. IT jobs by tailoring employment ads toward overseas workers.

The companies should look first for U.S. workers to fill U.S. IT jobs, said representatives of Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild and WashTech.

With the boycott, the three groups want to raise awareness of discriminatory hiring practices and put pressure on the three companies to consider U.S. IT workers for U.S. jobs, said Donna Conroy, director of Bright Future Jobs.

The main goals of the boycott are "attention getting" and putting pressure on the IT staffing firms to change their practices, Conroy said. With IT staffing agencies competing to fill U.S. positions, the companies contracting for their services may want to consider if the staffing firm "has a good reputation," she said.

The boycott should also raise concerns about staffing firms violating equal employment laws, said Les French, president of WashTech. "In addition to calling attention to an illegal practice, we want to show there are valid challenges to the 'labor shortage' of STEM workers," French said in an email.

An Infosys spokeswoman disputed the charges that it avoids recruiting U.S. IT workers.

"It is incorrect to allude that we exclude or discourage U.S. workers," she said by email. "Today, we are recruiting for over 440 active openings across 20 states in the U.S."

Many of the positions target people who have a U.S. master's degree in business administration for sales and management consultant jobs, she said. "The graduate hiring program is a key investment to strengthen our future leadership pool," she added. "Attracting the best and brightest talent is paramount to Infosys success."

The company's external job posts give "everyone an equal opportunity to apply," she added. The company supports several minority advocacy groups, she said.

Representatives from IBM and Manpower didn't respond to requests for comment on the boycott.

In some cases, a Manpower subsidiary has advertised for Indian IT workers to come to the U.S. for openings anticipated more than a year in advance, said Conroy, author of a white paper, released last week, that is focused on Manpower's IT recruitment efforts in India.

The advertisements in India are being placed even though "most Americans believe the nature of the tech industry is so fast-paced that staffing projections cannot be adequately foreseen," she said.

Meanwhile, Manpower is not advertising for U.S. IT positions on U.S. job portals, Conroy said. But if Manpower advertised in the U.S. using the same lead time it is using in India, it would give companies "plenty of time to seek Americans first."

In November 2013, Manpower subsidiary Experis IT India advertised in India for an OpenStack engineer for a U.S. position, Bright Future Jobs noted. "We are now hiring young, dynamic, skilled and experienced IT professionals from India to work with us in the U.S.," the ad said.

Other Experis IT India ads in late 2013 talked about the company filling out H-1B worker visa applications for job applicants, with one ad saying "all expenses related to your visa filing would be take care of" by Manpower.

The three tech workers groups also plan to launch an educational effort aimed at helping U.S. tech workers recognize discriminatory job ads and questions during job interviews, Conroy said. "When people are educated, there will likely be more lawsuits" related to discriminatory employment practices, she said.

Rajiv Dabhadkar, the founder of the National Organization for Software and Technology Professionals, a national tech advocacy organization in India, said he supports the boycott.

Indian employers show a "strong preference" for Indian IT workers, Dabhadkar said. He questioned why U.S. companies don't do the same thing.

The boycott "will protect the Indian foreign workers from the accusation of displacing Americans," he said. "Indians were not put on this earth to displace Americans, but Manpower's recruiting efforts show this is their plan."

Segregated recruiting opens the door to "unscrupulous agents" who make false promises to Indian IT workers, he added.

"The brokerage of intellectual capital drives down wages, and foreign workers are under paid," Dabhadkar said by email. "Multiple layers of broker agencies, that earn a per hour commission of their visa-sponsored employee creates a grey market."

Importing foreign workers to the U.S. as a commodity violates human rights, he added. "American employers gain competitive advantage and profitability by labor arbitrage, by paying low to their sponsored workers, and bidding high to their clients," Dabhadkar said.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is grant_gross@idg.com.

The $300 million payout from tech giants like Google and Apple to settle a lawsuit brought by employees makes it clear that Silicon Valley is out for profit, not to change the world.

Silicon Valley’s biggest names—Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe—reached a settlement today in a contentious $3 billion anti-trust suit brought by workers who accused the tech giants of secretly colluding to not recruit each other’s employees. The workers won, but not much, receiving only a rumored $300 million, a small fraction of the billions the companies might have been forced to pay had they been found guilty in a trial verdict.

The criminality that the case exposed in the boardrooms the tech giants, including from revered figures like Steve Jobs who comes off as especially ruthless, should not be jarring to anyone familiar with Silicon Valley. It may shock much of the media, who have generally genuflected towards these companies, and much of the public, that has been hoodwinked into thinking the Valley oligarchs represent a better kind of plutocrat—but the truth is they are a lot like the old robber barons...

...One might excuse the hagiographies prepared by the Valley’s ever expanding legion of public relations professionals, and their media allies, but the ugly reality remains. The Silicon Valley tech firms tend to be every bit as cutthroat and greedy as any capitalist enterprise before it. We need to finally see the tech moguls not as a superior form of oligarch, but as just the latest in long line whose overweening ambition sometimes needs to be restrained, not just celebrated.

I lasted 4 1/2 months at a place that turned out to be a frat-house. Guys flashing porn pics, day trading, playing FPS in the open, screaming and cussing, and not a clue how to do software dev. They tried put me full-time on a CMS project and I told them to shove it.

Plenty of leads in the job market. Three onsite interviews this week and a lot of calls. Most interesting one was a well funded startup with an open-office. I get led in, wearing my wing-tips and suit and tie, and see a guy in cargo shirts, t-shirt, and no shoes on, not even flip-flops. Immediately took off my tie and sat there for four hours doing a gang bang of interviews. Probably should have left after the manager in the first interview said she knew the manager at the place I just left. I didn't flip her off, but I am sure that word got around :-)

But the open office thing is weird. Too quiet and no privacy. Anyway, got turned down today.

Then I interviewed with this Russian guy (I am pretty sure Russians hate Hungarians like me). He started waving my resume around and saying "All these jobs, I don't like this! I don't want someone who will be here 6 months and leave!!" Douche. And that guy also knew that same manager from my last place. WTF?

So those two gigs won't be happening.

But all of the sudden these assholes are calling me a job hopper because I've been consulting and contracting for the last 20 years. Never mind that companies in the last 5-7 years have been downsizing, merging, and re-orging like crazy.

Anybody who has been at the same place for the last 5 years must be a serious ass-kisser and collaborator.

So, I've decided to go all slumdog on my resume. Change dates, add bogus skills, hype and fabricate shit. Nothing outrageous, like 25-yr. old Kumar with 15 years of ERP experience, but basic shit that I can BS past in an interview.

The companies lie to us, so we need to do the same. Maybe the slumdogs were on to something.

The ones who get degrees here are the worst! The entire purpose of the student visa is for people to study here then go back to their homeland to build up their native nations. NOT to stay in the US so they can live large. Such people are not only greedy and opportunistic, but unpatriotic and I believe that character should figure into immigration laws. What is the difference between a foreign STEM grad and an American STEM grad? Answer: the foreign STEM grad is taken by the hand and ushered into an extremely desirable American job. Whereas the American STEM grad has to move home and wait tables. This must end.

It is all about bringing in chaper labor from India . Does anyone really beleive that we don;t have the skilled labor in IT and acounting to do these jobs? If you do I have a bridge in NYC to sell you cheap. Its all about outsourcing to cheaper labor. Have to raise profits to keep investors happy. Can;t do it by 9increasing revenue so need to cut Laborl. Look at IBM . IN 10 years they have gone from over 200K employees in US to a target number of about 40K by 2015 yet the World wide number of employess is about flat. WHY ? Cheaper labor to grow profits. Look at the top 3 companies applying for the Visa.....they sure aren;t American companies and they sure do have access to some really cheap labor.

this is a perfect example of what these H1B d**cks do. They steal from each other in their own country, and then they come here and steal, and then they justify it by saying "everyone does it", so now stealing is ok, or they call it some fancy name like "globalization". They can't make their own country livable/it's filthy, so they come here and rob others, and then make it sound like everyone is a thief, like them. At least you're honest about how you all operate, I'll give you that.

Tech firms aren't even bothering to interview domestic candidates, despite the resume queues being full of them, before they hire foreigners. Its absolutely a travesty. Top grads can spend years sending out job applications not even to receive the basic courtesy of a response from many of those named employers.

Target Chairman, President and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said in a statement released to The Associated Press that the company will search for an interim chief information officer who can help guide the company through the transformation.

Jacob had been in her current role since 2008 and oversaw teams in the U.S. and India.

Target disclosed on Dec. 19 that the data breach compromised 40 million credit and debit card accounts between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. Then on Jan. 10 it said hackers also stole personal information — including names, phone numbers as well as email and mailing addresses — from as many as 70 million customers.

WHEN INDIANS TAKE OVER IT’S TIME TO EXIT

Now that Microsoft has succumbed to a new Indian CEO (no don’t call them asians they are half negroid middle easterners) it’s fate is sealed, all it’s wealth and monopoly will be gone in five to ten years until sucked dry by Indians it will be no more than a decaying emaciated corpse rotting in the sun (just like Sun rotted after bringing on Indians!)...

India’s emerging market rollercoaster has been a brutal ride for IBM

...Other problems started to crop up. In the fiscal year to March, 2012, employees in IBM’s Indian software division unit inflated revenues by $8 million in order to meet financial targets. The company fired two dozen employees in India because of the fraud.In the fiscal year to March 2013, IBM detected another instance of fraud which overstated revenues by about $10 million, Livemint reported, citing documents filed with the Indian government...

THE PSYCHOTIC INDIAN VIEW OF THE H-1B RAPE OF AMERICAN ENGINEERS

...Indian outsourcing companies realized that they are dealing with an average America and not that rich America. American dollar fell, gold and oil prices rose. The economic decline of the super power was silent but catastrophic.

Today the flagging U.S. economy is the major reason why nearly 40,000 H-1B visa application slots are currently unused, and an additional 9,000 slots in the Masters Exemption program are still open. It is not just the economy. Lots of factors are playing their part.

According to Wayne Rash at eweek.com, the economy is party responsible. India’s talented youth today can enjoy American dream right in their own country. A high tech Bangalore IT job is far more lucrative than coming to US, getting abused by Immigration, law enforcement, face burocracy, racism, lose freedom, family and friends, good food, culture and just “home sweet home!”

These youth of India are vibrant, independent, and free. They come to US for vacation and not for high tech slavery like their previous generation did. India has finally toppled the West in its own game.

The reason why H1B is so unpopular is because America economy is weak and America is no longer a desirable place for immigrants to achieve American dream.

The American dream is in India today. Sooner or later Americans will travel to India and work there to find what their ancestors once used to call American dream and prosperity...

"Job cuts arrived at multiple IBM locations in India this week and hundreds more layoffs are expected in the coming days.

In Bangalore one IBM unit called STG, the company’s hardware division, turned into a “slaughter house”, a worker reported. “People broke down after seeing the inhuman treatment,” the person wrote in the Alliance@IBM employees’ union website.

The cuts in India are part of IBM’s global plans to lay off thousands. However, employees in India, habituated to years of boom in the technology services industry, appeared to be hard hit. Insiders described emotional scenes following the layoff announcements.

Job cuts are not uncommon in India but Indian companies rarely subject their employees to the clinical ‘cut & exit’ treatment that is usual in the West."

"Reuters reports that CGI Federal, the contractor behind the disaster that is the federal ObamaCare website, is out and another large contractor, Accenture, will take its place with a new $91 million contract. One expert in this area of federal procurement and IT told Reuters that Accenture is no better than CGI, "We'll see how well they do," He said, "but Accenture doesn't have a strong reputation of doing this stuff successfully."

"At the end of the day, you have a company here that turned in subpar and visibly high-profile work. I think that that's a fireable offense," said Clay Johnson, chief executive officer of the Department of Better Technology, and former Presidential Innovation Fellow who has pushed for procurement reforms.

But the government appears poised to replace CGI with another large contractor. The Washington Post, which first broke the news, reported that Accenture will get a year-long contract for the website worth about $90 million. …

Johnson called the news "disappointing" and pointed to examples of poorly managed Accenture contracts highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group.

For example, the company was publicly faulted by the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) for costly delays and other problems during a major IT overhaul, Johnson noted.

"We'll see how well they do, but Accenture doesn't have a strong reputation of doing this stuff successfully," Johnson said.

President Obama has tried to blame the website's problems on the federal government procurement system, but that don't stop him from victimizing millions of American by placing them at the mercy of that procurement system through ObamaCare.

Obama not only cancelled the insurance of millions of Americans, he then forced many of them into a website that didn't work and that still has a number of back end problems. And now it looks as though Obama's solution to the botched website has been to find a new boss who looks just like the old boss.

Unless you want to count the non-renewal of CGI's contract as a firing, President Obama has yet to fire anyone associated with the disastrous roll-out of ObamaCare."

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Disclaimer
The thoughts expressed on this blog may or may not be the author's own and are protected
by the 1st Amendment. Any attempt to reveal his identity by contacting a slumdog
hack at Google, or a corrupt Desi sys-admin at his ISP will be dealt with promptly
and severely. Civil and criminal penalties may apply if one is found to have used
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